Tag: Music streaming »

Every music fan loves to attend concerts. It's not always practical or affordable, unfortunately. This is precisely where Qello helps out.

It's an app that allows its users to view concerts wherever they are, all through the Qello interface. For free, users get to view a track from every show as well as hours of free content that's also available. For $4.99 a month, users get the full experience.

The full experience allows users to create their own setlists, adding their favorite tracks in whatever order they wish. Content is available from the 1950s to the current day of music, with a plethora of music documentaries also accessible. Every genre thinkable is covered here. AirPlay support then makes it possible to stream all this content to the big screen via Apple TV.

Qello is out now for both iPhone and iPad. It's free to check out samples of the content on offer with a $4.99 monthly subscription required to view everything available through the service.

Amazon has launched their Cloud Player recently, offering 5GB of free cloud-based storage to users, with additional space available via subscription and 20GB available for free by an album download. Amazon allows for music on their Cloud drives to be played back by users either via a browser, or by way of an app. A platform notably missing from Cloud Player support has been iOS - the app launched on Android as an upgrade to the official Amazon MP3 app, but an iOS app has not been released. Why the Cloud Player has not had support for iOS yet is a good question. The most likely reason is because the Cloud Player is inextricably linked with Amazon's competing Amazon MP3 Store, especially as purchases from the store are available on users' Cloud Player accounts immediately. This likely means that there will never be an official iOS app version for the Cloud Player.

However, hope is not lost for iOS users looking to stream their music from Amazon's cloud solution. Amazon has updated the web version of Cloud Player to support Mobile Safari. This support appears to be unofficial - when trying to launch the Cloud Player from an iOS device, a warning prompts that it is not supported on the user's browser. However, the service loads properly, and allows for browsing of music, and it will play back without issue through Safari on iOS devices. As well, the Cloud Player supports iOS' multitasking controls directly, so it is possible to play and pause while using other apps. Track skipping however appears to not be working, after testing on both an iPod touch 4G and iPad 1G, so there are still some restrictions with the player and multitasking, although tracks do auto-advance while in the browser.

While the native app experience for the Amazon Cloud Player is superior, especially on Android, this does at least present something of a solution for iOS users looking to use the service, if/until Amazon is able to get an app on the App Store for users to use. It is unlikely that it ever will show up, but considering that apps like Rdio exist, it could happen someday, and this might just be a start in that direction.

Rdio, from the founders of Skype and haters of the letter A (we presume), have announced that their iOS app has gotten a huge update, revamping a bunch of the app's features. If you're not familiar with Rdio, it's a subscription service that lets you search for an and stream music on their service (which includes most if not all major popular releases) to devices that support their service, including iOS and Android apps. It's a subscription-based service, costing $9.99 per month for unlimited streaming and the ability to sync songs straight to your device for when listening when you're offline. They also offer a $4.99 per month subscription, for access via the web only.

The app features a bunch of new features. First, the homescreen has been redesigned in a more Springboard-esque design (similar to the Facebook app's home screen), with the ability to customize and rearrange the icons on the homescreen itself. As well, they've added access to see top charts and new releases, so if you need to stay hip on what's new, you can look at it, be befuddled as to who these people are and why they all sound like robots, before going back to your music with distorted guitars and incomprehensible screaming. That may just be me, though. Thankfully for people like me, personalized recommendations based on what you listen to are offered as well, so you can further envelop yourself in your bubble of specific taste. There's a fairly solid social aspect to the whole system as well, where the recommendations can be pulled from friends and taste leaders whom you "follow," a la Twitter.

As far as actually listening to music goes with the Rdio app, there's now a bar at the bottom of the app that lets you easily call up your currently playing song list and controls, so you can easily play/pause and skip tracks without losing your place in the app. You can also set your specific syncing options, so if you want songs to sync to your device only on wifi and never on 3G, or if you want to never actually download anything to your device, you can do so. Rdio is a neat service for legally listening to music on demand, and the app comes with a free 7-day trial so you can check out the service risk free, without entering any kind of payment information. If you've been looking for a streaming music service for your iOS device, Rdio is worth a look.